At the turn of each calendar year, I love to purge files, sort housewares, clean out closets and send my usable discards to the thrift store (while hoping I don’t buy them back later). As I do so, I’m also thinking it’s a good time to inventory some words and phrases...

If you are like many progressive believers, or the spiritual-but-not-religious type, you may not spend much time thinking about (cough, cough) sin. Oh, you’ve heard about those classic Seven Deadly Sins, if not in Sunday School then in that 1995 movie Se7en. That film...

It’s under there, somewhere, the beating heart of the life that we all share. It’s beneath the skin — the infinitely variegated surfaces that each individual shines up or oils down or covers with glitter or costume or camouflage. It’s coequal with the head — the...